When you feel a want of faith itself, as Hezekiah did, (Is. xxxviii. 14,) "Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me," (1 Kings viii. 57, 58,) do not undertake to fulfil any part of the covenant, or any condition in it, or any duty required of thee, of thyself, but go empty to Christ, and say as David, "Lord, I will run the ways of thy salvation, if thou wilt set my heart at liberty." (Ps. cxix. 32, 33.) "Quicken me, and I will call upon thy name." (Ps. lxxx. 18.) Be strong in the Lord, and the power of his might, but not of thine own. But I come for all, and am never a whit the better, but as poor and miserable still as ever I was. If the Lord keeps you poor and low, yet the same motive that made thee come, let it make thee stay; it may be the Lord sees thou wouldest grow full and lifted up if he should give thee a little, and therefore keeps thee low; better be humble than full and proud. "Let us go unto the Lord, because he hath wounded, broken, and slain us." But they might object, We do come, but find no help, no cure. It may be so; yet it is said, "After two days he will revive us, and the third day we shall live in his sight, and we shall know him, if we shall follow on to know him." (ver. 6.) His goings forth are prepared as the morning; it may be night for a time, but the Sun of righteousness will arise gradually and gloriously upon thy soul. Truly, brethren, when I see the curse of God upon many Christians that are now grown full of their parts, gifts, peace, comforts, abilities, duties, I stand adoring the riches of the Lord's mercy to a little handful of poor believers, not only in making them empty, but in keeping of them so all their days; and therefore come to the Lord, poor, empty, naked, nothing, cursed in the sense of thy want of all things, for all things, and then receive with gladness, yet boldness and holy confidence, not only pardon of some sins, but of all. Believe, answer not to some prayers, but all; embrace in thy bosom not some few promises, but all. It is a great ease of conscience. When may Christian take a promise without presumption as spoken to him, and given to him in particular? And the rule is very sweet, but certain when he takes all the Scripture and embraceth it as spoken unto him, he may then take any particular proper promise boldly. My meaning is, when a Christian takes hold and wrestles with God for the accomplishment of all the promises of the New Testament; when he sets all the commands before him, as his rule, and compass, and guide to walk after; when he applies all the threatenings to drive him nearer unto Christ the end of them, this no hypocrite can do, this the saints should : do, and by this may know when the Lord speaks in any particular to them. Go, I say again, therefore unto the Lord for all, and in the sense of all your emptiness be abundantly comforted; that, though you do not find supply from Christ, yet you come unto the Lord Christ for it. It is a certain rule, you shall not always want that good which you come to Christ to supply, nor always be mastered with that sin which you come to Christ with, to take away; only then be sure you come for all, otherwise you do not come truly. Come first for Christ himself, and then (as I said) for all his benefits. To conclude: this is the direct and compendious way of living by faith, so much urged and pressed of God's servants; for to live by faith properly is to live upon the promise in the want of the thing, or to apprehend the thing in the promise. (Heb. xi. 1.) Now, the promises are not given to the elect immediately, without Christ, but first Christ is given, i. e., offered in the gospel and received by faith, and then with him all things also; and therefore the Scripture runs thus, (Is. lv. 1-4) "Come unto the waters and drink, and then I will make an everlasting covenant," (which contains all the promises,) even the sure mercies of David." The apostle expressly disputes the case, and saith, "Where there is a testament," (containing evangelical promises,) "there must first be the death of the testator," (Heb. ix. 15, 16,) to whom we must first "come by faith," before we can have right to any promise. (Heb. vii. 22–25, and 10, 16-18, 22.) "Being justified by faith," now we have peace with God;" nay, 66 we have access to God;" 66 nay, now we are of sure standing," now we hope in and glory to come," (Rom. v. 1-4 :) all follow the first. 66 66 How shall a Christian, therefore, live by faith? Truly, first receive Christ and come to him for the end I mention; and then thou mayest be sure all other things shall be given to thee. As for example: dost want any temporal blessing? - suppose it be payment of debts, thy daily bread, provision for thy family, a comfortable yoke-fellow, etc.,- look now through the Scripture for promises of these things, and let thy faith act thus: If God hath given me Christ, the greatest blessing, then certainly he will give me all these smaller matters as may be good for me; but the Lord hath given me Christ, and therefore I shall not want. (Ps. xxiii. 1.) "The Lord is my shepherd," saith David ; what follows? "I shall not want." There is the like reason in all other things, suppose it be in care of protection from enemies, if the Lord hath given me Christ to save me from hell, then he will save me from these fleshly enemies much more. You shall see (Is. vii.) a promise given that "Syria should not prevail against Judah;" they doubted of this. How doth the Lord seek to assure them? You shall see, (ver. 14,) it is by promising "a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be Immanuel; this is a strange reason; yet you may see the reason of it if you consider this point. So, (Is. ix. 5, 6,)" The oppressor's rod shall be broken. For unto us a Son is born, a Son is given. By faith they put to flight the armies of aliens, brake down the walls of Jericho, did wonders in the world." What did they chiefly look to in this their faith? You shall see, (Heb. xi. 39, 40,) it was by respecting the promise to come, and the better thing, Christ Jesus himself, which we now see with open face, and therefore he concludes, (Heb. xii. 1-3,) "Having such a cloud of witnesses," that thus lived and died by faith, "let us look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of ours." The prophet Habakkuk (Hab. ii. 5) affirms that the "just shall live by faith." What faith is that? Consult with the place, you shall see it was in the promise of deliverance from the Chaldean tyranny; yet the apostle Paul applies it to faith in Christ's righteousness, and that truly, because if their faith had not respected Christ himself, in the first place, they could never have expected any deliverance by the premise of deliverance from the Chaldeans; but thus they might. 5. The special ground of faith. The last thing in the description of faith is, that the soul thus comes upon the call of Christ in his word; and this is the special ground of faith, wherefore the soul comes to Christ. Take a sinner humbled and broken for sin, he can not prevent the Lord by coming of himself unto Christ, and therefore the Lord prevents him, by his gracious call and invitation to come in. "Whom God hath predestinated, them hath he called." Our translation from darkness into God's marvelous light is by being called. The soul is lost in humiliation; the Lord Jesus, who is come to save that which is lost, seeketh it out in vocation, or calling. Sanctification is the restoring of us to the image of God we once had in Adam, as corruption is the defacing of that image; vocation is the calling of the soul unto Christ: this voice Adam never heard of; he did not need any call to come to Christ, and therefore was immediately sanctified, as soon as he was made: but we need vocation unto Christ, before we can be sanctified by Christ; we need this call to make us come to Christ, to put us into Christ, and therefore much more before we can receive any holiness from Christ; the ground of our coming by faith is God's call: (2 Thess. ii. 13, 14,) "Chosen to salvation through sanctifi cation," (the remote end of vocation,) "and belief of the truth," (the next end of it,) "whereunto he hath called you:" there is the ground of it. The explication of this call is a point full of many spiritual difficulties, but of singular use and comfort to them that are faithful and called. I shall omit many things, and explicate only those things which serve our purpose here in these three particulars: 1. I shall show you what this call is, or the nature of it. 2. The necessity of it. 3. How it is a ground of coming, and what kind of ground for faith. 1. The nature of this call I shall open for your more distinct understanding in several propositions, or theses. Our vocation or calling is ever by some word or voice, either outward or inward, or both; either ordinary or extraordinary; by the ministry of men, or by immediate visions and inspirations of God. I speak not now of extraordinary call, by dreams and visions, and immediate inspirations, as in Abraham and others, before the Scriptures were penned and published; nor of extraordinary call, by the immediate voice of Christ, as in Paul and in some other of the apostles; for these are ceased now, (Heb. i. 1,) unless it be among people that want ordinary means, and elect infants, etc., whose call must be more than by ordinary means, because they want such means; we speak now of ordinary call by the ministry of men. 2. This voice in ordinary calling home of the elect to Christ is not by the voice of the law, (for the proper end of that is to reveal sin and death, and to cast down a sinner,) but by the voice of the gospel bringing glad tidings; written by the apostles, and preached to the world. "He hath called you by our gospel. These things are written that you might believe. By the foolishness of preaching, the Lord saveth them that believe." I mean preaching at the first or second rebound, by lively voice, or printed sermons at the time of hearing, or in the time of deep meditation, concerning things heard; the Spirit indeed inwardly accompanies the voice of the gospel, but no man's call is by the immediate voice of the Spirit without the gospel, or the immediate testimony of the Spirit breathed out of free grace without the word. (Eph. i. 12, 13.) And therefore that a Christian should be immediately called without the Scripture, and the Scripture only given to confirm God's immediate promise, as a prince gives his letter to confirm his promise made to a man before, (as Valdesso would have it,) is both a false and a dangerous assertion. 3. This voice of the gospel is the voice of God in Christ, or the voice of Jesus Christ, although dispensed by men, who are but weak instruments for this mighty work, sent and set in Christ's stead; but the call, the voice, is Christ's; it is the Lord's call. (Rom. i. 6.) It is certain some of the messengers of Christ called the Romans by the gospel; yet Paul saith, "They were called by Christ Jesus; the dead hear his voice, and arise, and live;" and when the time of calling comes, they listen to it as his call: and hence it is styled, (Heb. iii. 1,) because the Lord Christ from heaven speaks, takes the written word in his own lips, as it were, (Cant. i. 1, 2,) and thereby pierceth through the ears, to the heart, through all the noise of fears, sorrows, objections against believing, and makes it to be heard as his voice; the bowels of Christ now yearn towards a humbled, lost sinner, bleeding at his feet, therefore can contain no longer, but speaks, and calls, and makes the soul understand his voice: so that this call is not a mean business, because the Lord Jesus himself now speaks, whose voice is glorious. 4. The substance of this call, or the thing the Lord calls unto, is to come unto him: for there is a more common calling (or, as some term it, a particular calling) of men, as some to be masters or servants, (1 Cor. vii. 20, 21, 24,) or to office in church or commonwealth, as Aaron, (Heb. v. 4;) and the voice there is to attend unto their work to which they are called. There is also a remote end of vocation, which is to holiness, (1 Thess. iv. 7,) and unto glory also, (2 Thess. ii. 14; Phil. iii. 14;) but we now speak of more special calling, the next end of which is to come unto Christ; the soul hath lived many years without him, the Lord Jesus will now have the lost prodigal to come home, to come to him; the soul is weary and heavy laden, and the Lord Jesus would easily ease it without its coming to him: but this is his will; he must come to him for it: (Matt. xi. 27; Jer. iii. 7, 22,) "I said, after she had done these things, Turn unto me, come unto me, ye backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings." (Jer. iv. 1,) "If thou returnest, return unto me." This voice, "Come unto me," is one of the sweetest words that Christ can speak, or man can hear, full of majesty, mercy, grace, and peace; a poor sinner thinks, Will the Lord ever put up such wrongs I have offered him, heal such a nature, take such a viper into his bosom, do any thing for me? If there be but one in the world to be forsaken, is it not I? The Lord therefore comes and calls, " Come unto me, and I will pardon all thy sins, I will heal all thy backslidings, I will be angry no more." (Jer. iii. 12, 13.) Though thou hast committed whoredom with many lovers, yet return unto 66 |